Red Kross.
I think I first heard them in about 1982.
Guitarist Jeff McDonald and his bassist brother Steven were still in their
teens. I was a fan of their early glam-trash-punk abrasions. Born Innocent, with killer tracks like
“Linda Blair” – good stuff. From 1984, Teen Babes from Monsanto was as kool as
its title; purveying low culture thrills ala Sonic Youth, but the McDonald
brothers offered melodic twists well beyond Sonic Youth’s sing to the chords
school of songwriting. Neurotica, released
in 1987 perfected their sensibility.
Its glammy vision - freakbeat, drug through the gutter of the New York Dolls
and put through the Back from the Crypt
grinder – was Redd Kross fully realized. Even if only Jeff could buy a drink
legally.
I was even pretty
thrilled through Third Eye, a chiming,
pure pop distillation of their gnarlier selves, released on Atlantic in 1990. My
crew played the shit out of it, turned people on to it, but then grunge came
along. It was shitty timing for Redd Kross. Their sassy, suburban snarl,
unafraid of androgyny, was anything but Eddie Vedder flannel. Their closest
kinship by then may have been to bands like Dramarama (a fine, fine outfit
indeed), who were still pretty burly by comparison.
Redd Kross’ other
Nineties releases were fresh, melodic and rocking. But somehow their sound lost
some of its distinction as the band shot for a little deeper commercial penetration.
Somehow it seemed too safe, too Material Issue or something, after their
Eighties stuff. Then, they disappeared.
Fifteen years disappeared.
They re-emerge on Merge Records with Researching the Blues.
It is so good.
It’s the kind of good – so rocking, so stacked with
invention and turn of phrase – that its instantly classic songs hit you like a
ton of bricks (“Stay Away From Downtown”)
first; then give way to the subtle hooks
of (at first) less arresting songs (“Winter Blues”).
Title track, “Researching the Blues,” initially inspired by the
scholarly, but gritty passions of John and Alan Lomax, is a fond, but scathing
rebuke to a friend turning down every wrong street and dark alley (“You just
can’t win, strung out on the devil again”).
“Researching” has a brooding, insistent edge that matches the lyric’s
darkness. The devil appears again (“the devil inside your head”) in “Stay Away
from Downtown.” This song is the embodiment of a power-pop performance, with no
neglect in the power department. Jeff McDonald and Robert Hecker’s
interlocking, riff off riff, guitar lines propel the song. Drummer Roy McDonald
(no relation) holds it all together with rock-ribbed Ringo drive and occasional
Moon bursts. Jeff and Brother Steven’s
harmony vocals remind how potent sibling harmonies can be (Everlys, Davies, …
you get the picture) At 2:40 the “yeah,
you” vocals hit, the “sha la las” enter at 2:52. Shortly after, you knock
yourself upside the head and realize – damn, this is in the same league with
Cheap Trick’s “Surrender” – a kitchen sink of power moves and pop turns.
